1. Field
The present application relates generally to communication networks, and more particularly, to methods and apparatus for network controlled mobile IP flow movements.
2. Background
Internet protocol, such as MIPv6, allows a mobile node to redirect traffic sent to its home address (HoA) to its current location. The current location of the mobile node is identifiable by a care-of-address (CoA). The mobile node gets its CoA from the access network to which it is currently connected. Quite often, a mobile node may be connected to multiple access networks and therefore have multiple CoAs.
The mobile node registers its CoAs with a home agent so that the home agent can route packets transmitted on a downlink to the correct address to reach the mobile node. Since the home agent has knowledge of all the CoAs associated with the mobile node, it can control which access network is used for any particular downlink transmission to the mobile node. Similarly, the mobile node can also select the access network to be used for any particular uplink transmission.
Heretofore, there has not been any operable scheme for conventional systems to allow an infrastructure node, such as a home agent, to control a mobile node to perform uplink transmissions using a specific access network. For instance, it would be desirable to have the mobile node use a particular access network for a particular uplink transmission that requires high bandwidth. However, it does not appear that current systems allow the network to control the mobile node to transmit the flow using that particular access network. This places limitations on the operation of the network since operators cannot impose routing policies on mobile nodes to best utilize network resources. Even in the scenarios that superior quality or excess bandwidth may be available on a given access network, but since the network infrastructure is unable to control the mobile to utilize that access network for a given uplink transmission, available network resources are not fully utilized.
Therefore, there is a need to have a mechanism that allows network infrastructure to control mobile IP flow movements on uplink communications from mobile nodes.